I pulled up to the traffic light and braked slowly. The light was red. I pulled the grocery list out of my sweatshirt pocket and skimmed over it again: grated cheese (sharp cheddar), red bell pepper, ground beef (1.5 lb)... Shouldn't take me but a few minutes.

The light changed to green, and cars started inching forward. Out of the corner of my ear, I heard the whine of a something like a jet engine screaming with giddy glee, growing steadily louder. Actually, my mind barely had time to register that, since but a second later, I was jerked sideways forcibly as my sedan went flipping through the air across the street, straight into a building.



Later: "Hi honey, do you need help bringing in the groceries?" I heard as I held the storm door open with one foot, fended off the dogs with a hand, and carried in the bag of groceries.

"No, I've got it," I said, and proceeded to put things away.

"What took you so long? I thought you'd be home a while ago."

"Heh. Guess," I replied. My wife gave me a knowing look in return.

You might have guessed she wasn't alluding to a train crossing the tracks or some construction on the freeway or a long line at the grocery checkout or a patch of bad traffic. Well, I guess maybe that last one.

Roughly five years ago, the Nakamura car company made a breakthrough in technology that would change the world forever. They called it Impact (well, they called it "Impact-o"), and it essentially removed all risk from driving.

Upon crashing, a specially crafted material in the body of the car absorbed all shock, leaving the contents totally unharmed. For exterior damage, such as wheels wrenched free, a strange magnetic-like force pulled these parts back on to the chassis after several minutes of waiting, during which it always appeared as though nothing at all was happening. To the driver and all who witnessed the crash, it might seem as if whatever power was responsible for the reassembly was looking on disapprovingly, perhaps clucking and shaking its head. The Nakamura company's PR group, ever the bunch of jokers, came up with oh so clever a name to call this phenomenon: the Force of Impact.


In about five minutes, this will have never happened.

Alarmingly soon after the initial announcement of the Impact technology and the release of the first Impactful vehicles, a corporate espionage war broke out, the likes of which had never been seen before. Actually, nobody saw this one either; only certain people in the offending companies on a need-to-know basis were aware of it. The Krieger car company ("ze Germans") was the first to crack the Nakamura nut and put out its own Impactowagon. The rest of the car manufacturers all fell after that, like so many dominos, one after another. Only a year later, not only were the most common of commuter vehicles Impact-Ready, but many buildings as well.

But that's only half of the story. The other half tells about why I ended up unceremoniously catapulted through the air, quite at odds with where I wanted to be at that moment.

With the danger of driving removed, laws about street-legality of cars, speed limits, and other traffic regulations were relaxed or repealed entirely. In this world, there are and have always been the "haves" and the "have-nots". These days, the haves are often in possession of one of the so-called "top tier" cars. Every one of the major car companies manufactures them, and their primary feature is a secondary engine that works more like rocket propulsion than anything else.


You only wish you could afford this thing.

It's entirely commonplace to see these cars blasting through the crowded downtown at hundreds of miles an hour, weaving between traffic, skidding crazily around corners with seemingly no traction to speak of, and executing all manner of daredevil feats using whatever naturally occurring ramps they can find.

Of course, these people have all the other hapless citizens who drive regular four door sedans or pickup trucks or underpowered hybrids at a disadvantage. Every day, hundreds of people are casualties of their whimsical sport. Well, not casualties, exactly, but you know what I mean. But what do they care? The law suffers their recklessness. Nobody's getting hurt. Everything here is made with Impact, so it all heals automatically.

I want to say that I'm angry at their lack of consideration, but really, in the end, when you boil it all down and remove the fancy words and righteous indignation, it's probably just that I'm jealous.